...and then I woke up and my life had changed all over again. After finally hitting my stride in the Steel City, I've just traded in the Allegheny for the Rhein and my Yuengling for a Bönnsch and I'm plunging into my life as a visitng researcher at the Max Planck Institut für Mathematik.
One of my goals during my time a MPIM is to wrangle the second half of my thesis into something publishable. The content is good (I think...I hope...please), but the current difficulty is in turning this 60-page document into something closer to 12 pages. I hadn't looked at most of this material since May, so I was a bit wary of getting involved with it again. As, of course, you feel anytime you take back up with a lover who has treated you poorly in the past. But amazingly, allowing these theorems to ripen on the vine for a few months has given me a really fresh perspective on them, and in one day's time I already hacked a 2-page proof down to half a page.
Today, on my customary mid-day run along the Rhein (which I always follow up with a lunch of sausage and potatoes -- more on that later), I was listening to a particular gem of a song by Birdman, and it was like he was speaking to me.
That's right, private flight
Money gets stacked to the highest height
Better get your math and science right
But I want the drama, guided light
I want the hype, but I don't believe it
I want it all, but I know I don't need it
Fruits of labor plucked too soon are a potential not fully realized. And here I am, postdocing at the legendary MPIM, finally plucking the ripened fruits of my labor, and I just want it to be a grand success. I may be reaching beyond my means, but I just want it to be so damn good. Also, I can't wait to have stacks of money -- while the study of poverty is a rich and interesting subject, my own poverty is beginning to bore me.
<3
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